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Grand-Am Rolex 24 at Daytona preview

January 22, 2013

Patrick Long piloted the No. 73 Park Place Motorsports Porsche GT3 car to the top GT class with a time of 1:48.569, or 118.045 mph, at the Roar Before the Rolex 24 test session. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Taken as a preview of both the 2013 Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona as well as the entire 12-race Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series season, the “Roar Before the Rolex 24” had neither the look nor feel of a lame-duck, let's-get-it-over-with effort as sports-car racing looks forward to the combined Grand- Am/American Le Mans Series debut in 2014. The “Roar” was a three-day test session at Daytona International Speedway, held three weeks before the the 51st annual race, scheduled for this weekend, Jan. 26-27.

Seventeen Daytona Prototypes are on the race's entry list, along with 36 GT cars and six cars in the new GX class. Many of the DP and GT class entries are likely Daytona-only; some teams, such as the defending series champ Chip Ganassi Racing, field two cars for Daytona, but typically one for the whole season. Plus, there were others in attendance at the test more for the one-race experience than a year-long kickoff. Discounting those part-timers, a season-long field of 12 DP cars seems likely.

In GT, there were also Daytona-only entries, with perhaps half of the test field in for the long haul. Hurting GT car counts this year is the departure of the Mazda RX-8 rotary; though still eligible, Mazda doesn't sell the car any more and won't support it to the same degree. This caused the departure of some Mazda teams, such as Dempsey Racing, led by actor Patrick Dempsey, and led indirectly to the move by Team Sahlen from GT to a two-car DP effort with Riley-BMWs.

Mazda's departure from GT led to the all-new, third Grand- Am class for 2013: GX. It's oversimplifying to say that the class was developed to offer Mazda a place to race, but the company will campaign the all-new Mazda 6 powered by a turbodiesel engine.

Of the six GX cars at the test, three were Mazda 6s, but the only one that made the trip was the familiar flat-black No. 70 car of Sylvain Tremblay, whose company, SpeedSource, is developing both the new car and the engine. Though the car uses a modified, lengthened RX-8 tube-frame chassis, the engine is new to Tremblay and the U.S. division of Mazda and suffered teething pains in the test. Also absent was the Lotus Evora GX of Raceworks Group.

The only two remaining GX cars, both Porsche Caymans, managed to get some meaningful track time. Fastest was Shane Lewis in the Napleton Racing Porsche Cayman -- the Cayman race cars use a large number of stock parts and will be one of the few cars on the grid actually using a conventional manual transmission.

Lewis ran just more than 110 mph, about 8 mph slower than the fastest GT car, and 15 mph slower than the fastest DP car, so there should be some hair-raising overtaking moves on the back stretch. He expects more GX cars in future races this season, as some people took a wait-and-see attitude to make sure GX was included in the 2014-and-beyond plans for the combined Grand- Am and ALMS, and it is. Also likely is that some competitors in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge series will move up to GX.

Back in DP, Michael Shank Racing left the test in the same place it left the 2012 race: on top. Both the No. 6 and 60 Riley-Fords were fast, and the 6, with Michael Valiente behind the wheel, set the fastest time at the Roar with a lap of 1 minute, 42.08 seconds, or 125.526 mph. After the first of the three test days, A.J. Allmendinger, in Shank's No. 60, was fastest, so both entries should be contenders. Shank is trying to find a way to keep both cars racing all year.

As usual, Ganassi's Riley-BMWs concentrated more on race setups than fast laps. Defending series champions Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas are back all season in the No. 01 car, joined for the Rolex by Juan Pablo Montoya, Scott Dixon and Charlie Kimball. The No. 02 machine had Dario Franchitti, Joey Hand and Jamie McMurray in the car, with Pruett and Dixon listed as co-drivers.

Michael Shank Racing should put up a strong defense of its 2012 win in the Daytona Prototype class at the Rolex 24. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Brand new to DP was the Star Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette, led by Venezuelan Enzo Potolicchio, who stepped out of one of Starworks Motorsport's cars midway through 2012. His co-drivers were Stéphane Sarrazin, Anthony Davidson, Nicolas Minassian and Pedro Lamy. It was Davidson's first time back on a track since his devastating 2012 crash at Le Mans in his Toyota. Also new to DP were the two Sahlen Riley-BMWs, and they picked up some potent part-time help for Daytona that included Bruno Junqueira, Simon Pagenaud and Dane Cameron.

Also back in DP is Wayne Taylor Racing, with Velocity, a software company, replacing Suntrust as the lead sponsor on its Corvette. Also returning with Corvettes: Spirit of Daytona, Action Express Racing (two cars for Daytona) and the Gainsco/Bob Stallings Racing car, this time with Darren Law and Memo Gidley joining regulars Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney. No Corvette topped the speed chart during the three-day test.

In GT, the departure of Flying Lizard Motorsports was offset partly by the new Park Place Motorsports' pair of Porsche GT3 cars, one of which Patrick Long drove to the top GT time of 1:48.569, or 118.045 mph.

There were five Audi R8s entered, including a couple of new ones -- the RumBum Racing team, which has raced BMWs and Porsches the past two seasons, had one for drivers Matt Plumb, Frank Biela, Christopher Haase and Markus Winkelhock. And Alex Job Racing entered one of its customary Porsches, but also an R8. Job, whose team last year developed the Lotus Evora for the ALMS, said that program is on hold due to budget issues.

Defending Rolex 24 champ Magnus Racing is back with a pair of Porsche GT3 Cup cars, and Stevenson Motorsports' strong Chevrolet Camaro returns with drivers Robin Liddell, John Edwards, Jan Magnussen and Tommy Milner. The Jeff Segal-led AIM Autosport Ferrari is back with two entries, as is a pair of Turner Motorsports M3s. Scott Sharp and Ed Brown, who run typically in the ALMS, were at Daytona with their Ferrari 458, and co-drivers Johannes van Overbeek and Mike Hedlund.

Bottom line: It's a solid field for the Rolex 24, as well as for the entire Grand- Am season. After Daytona, the series moves to the inaugural race at Circuit of the Americas in Texas, then Barber Motorsports Park, Road Atlanta, Detroit, Mid-Ohio, Watkins Glen, Indianapolis, Road America, Kansas, Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca and back to Lime Rock for the finale. Add Long Beach and Sebring, and take away maybe two tracks, and you likely have a rough schedule for the combined series in 2014.